Sunday, October 23, 2011

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Images are all of Maude Fealy; background by Brenda Starr, the stars are a brush and the moon is a photo from NASA.

A Halloween piece I started last year and put away unfinished. A few new touches and it's done!
The angel and gravestones are public domain photos from Wikimedia; the image of the child found on Smugmug, and the other is public domain, of the actress Gloria Cooper.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Inspired by the song "inchworm" from the movie "Hans Christian Anderson." The worm was googled, the tape measure is a brush I made,the background was made with bits from Ellenvd and Joycesphotoalbum at T4L. I hope I goth the math right!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I went with an American childhood classic, Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer! As a child I loved this book, read it many times, and dreamed that I was as clever as Tom!

Background is a wooden fence by Charles Deenen, "whitewashed"by me with PS brushes, and a page of text from and old copy of the book. The Tom and friends image is a collector plate--remember those? Sam Clemens is up in the corner.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

One of my favorite Halloween themes! I used one of my favorite Old House photos from Wikimedia Commons and background textures from Temari09 and Termin8or at Textures for Layers. I played a bit with layer styles and duplicate layers, and the stamp is one of my originals.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

This guy is the Fremont Troll (see below). I expect he could not only bump into your house, but eat it too if he had a mind to...

The Fremont Troll (also known as The Troll, or the Troll Under the Bridge) is a piece of public art in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington in the United States.
The Troll is a mixed media colossal statue, located on N. 36th Street at Troll Avenue N., under the north end of the Aurora Bridge. It is clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle, as if it had just swiped it from the roadway above. The vehicle has a California license plate.[1] The Troll was sculpted by four local artists: Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter, and Ross Whitehead. He is interactive—visitors are encouraged to clamber on him or try to poke out his one good eye (a hubcap). The Troll is 5.5 m (18 ft) high, weighs 6,000 kg (13,000 lb), and is made of steel rebar, wire, and concrete.[2]

Aurora Avenue North was renamed "Troll Avenue" in its honor in 2005 and the troll was entered in the soapbox derby in 2007.[3][4]

Thank you Carla, for assuming charge of the Soartful Saturday challenge. I think we've all missed Jeanette's thoughtful challenges and wonderful comments.

I chose the crow for my piece, as Halloween is upon me in a big way. The books are from Wikimedia, skull from google, birdcage a freebie from an oline workshop and the watch from The sum of all Crafts blog. THe background is made from bits by Playingwithbrushes at Textures for Layers Flickr group and from Shadowhouse Creations.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

I learned this technique from an Adobe PSE magazine. It involves using the Displace filter to make an image look like it is painted directly on a textured surface.

The wall, a photo of an ancient Mexican pyramid, is from Seldom Seen at T4L and the image of Frida is a photo from a Mexican Cultural poster, the kind that might be plastered on a wall.

This one is based on an idea for an art journal proposed by Elizabeth Golden, from Last Door...Down the Hall. It's to use photos of old walls and add your own "graffiti" to them. She's done several, and they are posted on her blog. This wall is, in fact, one of her photos, offered as a freebie there. Thank you Elizabeth! The Dancer is a brush I made from an altered photo.